"Alexandra Nowakowski is delightful as the salacious Zerbinetta, tossing off her high E’s and her trills with aplomb. "

THE CULTURAL CRITIC

Praised by Opera News for her “impassioned singing”, Polish-American coloratura soprano Alexandra Nowakowski makes her European debut as the title role in Manon with Ópera de Oviedo to start off her 23/24 season. A passionate ambassador of Polish art song, she brings mixed programs to various venues with Polish pianist Michał Biel, including the Palau de la Música, the Lied Festival Life Victoria, and Carnegie Hall’s Citywide Concert Series. She also joins Francesco Cholbi in recital for the Sociedad de Conciertos de Alicante and Luke Housner with Astral Artists for her farewell recital. This year she is also a scholarship recipient from the Fundación Ópera Actual. 

A frequent collaborator with the The Metropolitan Opera, she has covered in multiple in productions, including Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, and Gilda in Rigoletto, all for the 21/22 season. She returned for the 22/23 season to cover Barbara/Mrs. Latch in The Hours (Puts), Voce dal cielo in Don Carlo, and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. For the 22/23 season she was also heard as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Exsultate jubilate with the Symphony in C as well as The Artosphere Festival under the baton of Corrado Rovaris. She also sang the Queen of the Night with the Ópera Popular de Barcelona, was the soprano soloist in Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen also with Symphony in C, and sang the soprano soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music at Carnegie Hall with the New England Symphonic Ensemble.

In addition to her Met contracts, the 21/22 season saw Nowakowski join the Brooklyn Art Society to sing Shostakovich's Op. 79, and was praised for her "outstanding performance... Her connection with the text and music were so complete that it was hard to separate the singer from the song." (Rick Perdian) She presented a solo recital at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona as a finalist in the El Primer Palau competition. She also sang a solo recital to benefit orphans in Ukraine with the Embassy Series and sang Mozart's Exsultate jubilate, K. 165 with the Symphony in C. As a recipient of the Beebe Fund Scholarship, Nowakowski spent several months in Poland studying Polish music, culminating in a debut album of all Polish music called "Kraina." 

Alexandra was scheduled to begin her 2020-21 season by joining the roster of The Metropolitan Opera to cover the role of Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann (COVID19). She was also slated to be presented in multiple concert venues, including the Carnegie Hall Citywide Concert Series, a return to the Columbus Symphony for Haydn's Creation, and a debut with the National Symphony Orchestra for Mahler's 4th Symphony under Gianandrea Noseda. She made her debut in Poland in a New Year’s Eve gala with the Opera Bałtycka in Gdańsk, Poland. In the summer of 2021, Ms. Nowakowski returned to Wolf Trap Opera as Johanna in Sweeney Todd and La Fée in Viardot's Cendrillon. To finish off the 20/21 season she sang a solo recital for The Sembrich Museum.

In 2020, Ms. Nowakowski was scheduled to sing the role of Hilde Mack in Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers (COVID19) at Wolf Trap Opera where she made her debut in the summer of 2015 covering Susanna and performing Due Donne in ​Le nozze di Figaro. She was invited back in 2019 where she performed the role of Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos to critical acclaim, including that of the Washington Classical Review, stating that she “brought strength and sincerity” and “finessed the coloratura demands of the aria ‘Grossmächtige Prinzessin’ with panache and airy nuance, as refreshing as a gin fizz.”

As a Cafritz Young Artist at the Washington National Opera for the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, Ms. Nowakowski performed the roles of Papagena and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute at the Kennedy Center, as well as the role of Anna Gomez in The Consul staged by Francesca Zambello with the Cafritz Young Artist Program. She performed Nannetta in scenes from Falstaff as well as Clorinda in scenes from La Cenerentola in concert with the WNO Orchestra under the baton of Joseph Colaneri on the Kennedy Center stage.

Ms. Nowakowski's recent orchestral debuts include Mozart’s Requiem with the Columbus Symphony, a NYE Concert with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and as Gilda in a concert version of Rigoletto, broadcast on medici.tv with the Verbier Festival. No stranger to medici.tv, she was also broadcast live as a participant in Joyce DiDonato’s Masterclass at Carnegie Hall in 2019, as well as in 2018 as a semi-finalist for the inaugural Glyndebourne Opera Cup. Additional recent solo performance credits include a solo recital at The Phillips Collection as the First Prize winner of the Vocal Arts DC Art Song Discovery Competition as well as her debut performance of Bach’s B minor Mass with the Bach Society Houston.

A highly successful competitor, Ms. Nowakowski was a First Prize winner in the Opera Columbus Cooper-Bing Competition, the Partners for the Arts Competition, the Marcella Sembrich International Voice Competition with the Kosciuszko Foundation, and is a winner of the 2019 Astral National Auditions. She is a First Prize winner of the Gerda Lissner Foundation Competition and the Violetta DuPont Competition. She won Second Prize in the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition, the Gerda Lissner Lieder/Song Competition, FAVA’s Grand Concours de Chant, and the Dorothy-Lincoln Smith Voice Competition. She has garnered other significant top awards from the Loren L. Zachary Society Vocal Competition and the Giulio Gari Foundation Competition and was a 2020 Second Place Winner from Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in the Middle Atlantic Region. 

As a resident artist at the Academy of Vocal Arts, Ms. Nowakowski performed the roles of Zerbinetta and Najade in Ariadne auf Naxos, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Gilda in Rigoletto, Sophie in Werther, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, and Musetta in La bohème. Other role highlights include Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel with the Philadelphia Sinfonia, and Dido in Dido and Aeneas with the Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana.​
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Ms. Nowakowski holds an Artist Diploma from AVA and a Bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Repertoire

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Tytania)
Agrippina (Poppea)
Alcina (Morgana)
Arabella (Fiakermilli)
Ariadne auf Naxos (Zerbinetta/Najade)
Ariodante (Ginevra)
Candide (Cunégonde)
Capriccio (Italian Singer)
Cendrillon (La Fée)
Der Freischutz (Ännchen)
Der Rosenkavalier (Sophie)
Der Schauspieldirektor (Madame Herz)
Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (Blonde)
Die Fledermaus (Adele)
Die Zauberflöte (Queen of the Night/Pamina)
Don Pasquale (Norina)
Falstaff (Nannetta)
Fidelio (Marzelline)
​Guillaume Tell (Jemmy)
Hamlet (Ophélie)
I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Giulietta)
Idomeneo (Ilia)
I Puritani (Elvira)
La bohème (Musetta)
La finta giardiniera (Sandrina)
La fille du régiment (Marie)
La sonnambula (Amina)
Les Huguenots (Marguérite de Valois)
Les Indes Galantes (Hébé/Phani/Zima)
Les mamelles de Tirésias (Thérèse)
Les contes d’Hoffman (Olympia)
Lakmé (Lakmé)
L’elisir d’amore (Adina)
L’enfant et les sortileges (Le feu/La princesse/Le rossignol)
Linda di Chamounix (Linda)
Lucia di Lammermoor (Lucia)
Lucio Silla (Celia)
​Mignon (Philine)
Mitridate (Ismene)
Orphée aux enfers (Eurydice)
Parsifal (Blumenmädchen)
Platée (La Folie)
Rigoletto (Gilda)
Roméo et Juliette (Juliette)
Semele (Semele)
Siegfried (Forest Bird)
The Golden Cockerel (The Queen of Chemakha)
The Nightingale (The Nightingale)
The Snow Maiden (Snow Maiden)
Un ballo in maschera (Oscar)
Zaide (Zaide)